Happy New Year!

~ Martha Stewart~

Happy New Year!!!  New Year's Eve has always been such a special time of celebration for our family!  When the children were little, my husband came up with the neat idea that we would each wear a hat of our own design and it's a tradition that we've carried on almost every single year!  So much fun!  Some of my best memories were when we lived in Birmingham, Alabama and all of my Tennessee relatives would come!  The children danced and partied the night away and rang in the New Year with fireworks and the banging of pots and pans, a tradition that has carried itself over into adulthood on more than one occasion.  In Arkansas, it developed into a larger party inviting our friends and their children!  We truly have had some creative friends over the years to make it such a special time!  I hope that you enjoy the final day of 2010 and I hope that your year has been filled with much joy and many blessings.  We rejoice in the goodness of God!  We were blessed with the wedding of Kara and Phil Board and we were so happy to meet his family and have him join ours.  Our children and grandchildren are happy and healthy.

I have learned a great deal this year.  I have learned that God has a timetable and often, His is not at all like mine. He is Wise and All Knowing!  I am not at all. The first day of the new year will begin, sadly, with our son, Steven, attending the funeral of one of his very dear and special friends.  These young men seem to young to learn this. I know that Steven is learning about the brevity of life in a way that I would have not chosen.  But I know that none of us are promised tomorrow~only today.  So..... I do rejoice in the goodness of God, as I said, and I rejoice in the peace that He gives that is through His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.  I wish you a vital, happy, healthy New Year!  Fill the moment and each day you are given with many graces of love and kindness (it will return to you) and may all be well with you my friend in 2011!  God bless you and keep you and may HIS GLORIOUS face shine upon you!!!